Apple has no incentive to prevent other companies from licensing ARM technology.

How much profit does ARM make from the sale of a single CPU? How much profit does Apple make from the sale of a single iPhone? How much would denying competitors access to ARM designs boost Apple's share of the market for smart phones?

Knowing the answers to these questions is all that we need to know in order to figure out what Apple's incentives are here. We can make ballpark estimates for the first two questions. Apple probably makes at least $100 in profit from each iPhone sold. ARM probably makes less than $10 for each CPU sold. So if Apple can sell one more iPhone than they otherwise would have for every 10 CPUs that ARM no longer receives a license fee from, then Apple breaks even on the deal. I think that is a highly plausible scenario.

Arm will ose a TON of business if apple buys them .ARM Processors are in more then just cell phones. Blu-ray players and other devices also have arm chips in them . So does the Nintendo DS. IF apple buys ARM , ARM would lose some of its biggest business.

Apple is reportedly interested in acquiring ARM Holdings, the Cambridge England firm that licenses the majority of the world's mobile chip designs.

According to a report by the London Evening Standard, "Apple is ARM's biggest customer and speculation is that the iPad maker wants to take chip design in house."

After noting that shares in ARM had "shot up 8.1p to 251.1p," the report cited a trader as saying, "A deal would make a lot of sense for Apple. That way, they could stop ARM's technology from ending up in everyone else's computers and gadgets.

The report added "traders reckon a bid would come in at around 400p a share, valuing ARM at more than £5.2 billion [$8 billion US]."

Apple originally founded ARM in a 1990 partnership with UK computer maker Acorn and chip fab VLSI Technologies. At the time, Apple was interested in adapting Acorn's new RISC processor for use as a mobile processor in the company's new Newton Message Pad.

As Apple discontinued the the Newton line in the late 90s, chief executive Steve Jobs began selling Apple's shares of ARM in an effort to balance the company's books. Apple returned to ARM processors with the iPod in 2001, and has consistently used ARM processors ever since in its iPods, recent AirPort wireless base stations, the iPhone, and iPad.

Apple appears to have acquired chip designer Intrinsity in order to accelerate the ARM Cortex A8 to 1GHz speeds. Were Apple to buy ARM, it could leverage a great deal of power over the market for mobile and embedded processors chips, the vast majority of which are based on licensed ARM designs.

Currently, Apple pays royalties for ARM's chip designs used in its products. If the company acquired ARM, it could conceivably raise licensing costs to rivals or even take ARM designs off the market. Competitors to ARM in the mobile arena, including Intel's Atom processor family, are not nearly as power efficient.

Similar to Intrinsity and PA Semi, ARM only licenses its chip designs and technologies to other companies that actually build the chips.

Ex-ARM employee

You have to laugh at vague speculations Apple is not ARM's biggest customer. ARM sells to every single chip vendor in the mobile industry and almost all consumers devices are powered by ARM. Yearly run rate was around 4 billion, but probably closer to 5 billion now.

As to Apple buying them, I doubt this would happen. You would then destroy the unique position that ARM has as a company (they are a defacto standards and not controlling like some other equivalent organizations) that truly partners with others. Which means they can get input from major chip vendors and OEMs. If Apple bought them this would be gone. And why would Apple want to back just one processor architecture, surely they would like real competition?

Can I seem them invest? Absolutely, just as they did in Imagination technologies who supply the GPU to Apple devices.

Arm will ose a TON of business if apple buys them .ARM Processors are in more then just cell phones. Blu-ray players and other devices also have arm chips in them . So does the Nintendo DS. IF apple buys ARM , ARM would lose some of its biggest business.

I just don't see this being any good in the longterm.

Why would manufacturers of bluray players stop using ARM CPUs? Apple doesn't compete in that market.

Apple is reportedly interested in acquiring ARM Holdings, the Cambridge England firm that licenses the majority of the world's mobile chip designs.

According to a report by the London Evening Standard, "Apple is ARM's biggest customer and speculation is that the iPad maker wants to take chip design in house."

After noting that shares in ARM had "shot up 8.1p to 251.1p," the report cited a trader as saying, "A deal would make a lot of sense for Apple. That way, they could stop ARM's technology from ending up in everyone else's computers and gadgets.

The report added "traders reckon a bid would come in at around 400p a share, valuing ARM at more than £5.2 billion [$8 billion US]."

Apple originally founded ARM in a 1990 partnership with UK computer maker Acorn and chip fab VLSI Technologies. At the time, Apple was interested in adapting Acorn's new RISC processor for use as a mobile processor in the company's new Newton Message Pad.

As Apple discontinued the the Newton line in the late 90s, chief executive Steve Jobs began selling Apple's shares of ARM in an effort to balance the company's books. Apple returned to ARM processors with the iPod in 2001, and has consistently used ARM processors ever since in its iPods, recent AirPort wireless base stations, the iPhone, and iPad.

Apple appears to have acquired chip designer Intrinsity in order to accelerate the ARM Cortex A8 to 1GHz speeds. Were Apple to buy ARM, it could leverage a great deal of power over the market for mobile and embedded processors chips, the vast majority of which are based on licensed ARM designs.

Currently, Apple pays royalties for ARM's chip designs used in its products. If the company acquired ARM, it could conceivably raise licensing costs to rivals or even take ARM designs off the market. Competitors to ARM in the mobile arena, including Intel's Atom processor family, are not nearly as power efficient.

Similar to Intrinsity and PA Semi, ARM only licenses its chip designs and technologies to other companies that actually build the chips.

Just a correction on the last paragraph. ARM is nothing like Intrisity and PA Semi, who are/were mostly design house. ARM is a pure play IP company, the largest in the world. They are closely like companies like Synopsis and MIPS (another processor IP company).

And why would Apple want to back just one processor architecture, surely they would like real competition?

I think this is the best argument against a merger. Apple really does like to be in a position to play multiple suppliers off one another. And we all know that Intel is no slouch. Just because ARM has the better CPU design today, doesn't mean Intel won't be on top 5 years from now.

And your idea that Apple might just make an investment also makes sense.

But I still think this is a plausible rumor. Apple makes a lot more profit off of the sale of a single device than ARM makes from the sale of the CPU in that device, so ARM could lose a lot of customers and this could still be a gain for Apple.

Apple is unlikely to buy ARM. SJ is fully aware how a takeover of that size would cause all sorts of unwelcome distractions to a company that prides itself on laser-like focus. Apple is however seriously concerned with the activities of Google and may want to take a large defensive holding in one of the companies it presently relies on.

In the end however I actually think this is a stock manipulation rumour from some bastard in the City of London.

And, even better, having Apple say, "No thanks. These are ours. Get your own."

Wham bam, monopoly investigation.

This is just a stock pump. Maybe Apple will increase their holding, but nothing more.

Never mind that the existing licenses won't become invalid, so it won't stop competitors from using their existing licenses. Qualcomm is the major alternative, and they have an architecture license, so they will just keep on producing products, and developing their own enhancements if need be.

Arm will ose a TON of business if apple buys them .ARM Processors are in more then just cell phones. Blu-ray players and other devices also have arm chips in them . So does the Nintendo DS. IF apple buys ARM , ARM would lose some of its biggest business.

I just don't see this being any good in the longterm.

For all of you who have fantasized about Apple buying adobe (which they never will because it's basically a PC software company as somebody astutely said, despite the fact that they could have photoshop and destroy flash), this ARM deal is cut from the same cloth. ARM is the de facto standard, and they would be able to shape that standard, and read the tea leaves that much earlier (apple is very much in the FORESIGHT business as much as anything!). They don't need to own it outright for this, but being a huge stockholder should be sufficient.

I agree that this would be a HUGE gift to intel if they bought ARM, and all sorts of manufacturers of all sorts of electronics would be terrified. Monopolies are lovely if you're the monopolist, so they may do this, too.

Manufactures the chips? Yes. Create the underlying ISA? No. AMD and license have a cross-licensing deal, whereby both can use ISA advancements created by the other royalty, and AMD is allowed to use the x86-32 ISA which Intel created, royalty free. You want to bet if HP swallowed up Intel and revoked AMD's x86 license, people wouldn't complain?

See above. The x86 ISA is controlled soley by Intel, since they created it...

Mostly. As you noted, Intel owns the basic ISA for x86, as well as the 32-bit extension, and it licenses that ISA to AMD. On the other hand, the 64-bit extension which was ultimately accepted by the market is owned by AMD, and it and licenses that extension back to Intel.

If AMD and Intel cancelled their cross-licensing agreements, then Intel's existing line of 64-bit x86-based processors would cease to exist. 32-bit Intel processors would continue to be available, and would continue to run all our favourite 32-bit software. But in terms of 64-bit, another standard, necessarily incompatible with all the existing x86_64 software already available on the market today, would have to be invented to replace it. (Intel's own in-house 64-bit implementation, Itanuim, has now been officially rejected by all major software vendors.)

Back on topic:

IF Apple bought ARM Holdings, and then continued to license the IP to 3rd parties under the same terms ARM Holdings used to, I don't think there would be a major problem.

IF Apple bought ARM, and then increased the licensing fees it charges 3rd parties to use the IP, there would be some pain, but I think the market would be able adjust. Other manufacturers might gradually phase ARM-based processors out of their designs in favour of less expensive alternatives, and ARM might gradually drift towards irrelevance in the market.

IF Apple bought ARM, and then decided to start directly controlling the manufacture of ARM processors, selling their own handpicked set of manufactured processors directly to consumer device manufacturers, the market would see major upheaval as existing designs have to adapt to potentially very different pinouts etcetera. And as above, ARM might gradually drift towards irrelevance depending on factors such as reliability of supply, performance, and prices.

IF Apple bought ARM, and then proceeded to use the IP in house, but refuse to allow any of the IP to be used by any 3rd parties or other consumer device manufacturers, there would be unmitigated catastrophe in the market. Regulators would almost certainly step in to block such a move.

Where has this trader been? ARM's technology already is in everyone else's computers and gadgets, at least the pocket sized ones. As such, I don't see this getting past the anti-trust boards, if it even gets that far.

I don't buy the whole " spend billions to keep others from having it" ethos.
I think Apple realizes that ARM is "the" platform for mobility going forward and
they are investing heavily themselves. If they are investing themselves then why
not make a little money and influence the design of mobile platforms going forward.
...

It behooves Apple to not only maintain current clientele but keep them happy and move forward with improved designs and tools.

I agree - why dump existing clients when you can have lead time on designs, sell to competitors and make money off of them also. It really makes much better sense to keep the business self sustaining instead of just spending all that money to choke others off.

Remember we are talking about $9 billion (or $9000 million for those across the pond) which is far from chump change or money just to mess with someone. The acquisition has to make business since - that would be a lot of money to have to recover (along with keeping it around to support existing contracts) just for an advantage in the processor field.

If another company did that to Apple, you would be among the first up and screaming about how unfair it is.

Highly unlikely. Apple's modus operandi is just to move to another technology. Power PC is a perfect example. Even while they were using the Power architecture on their mobile and desktop computers they had Intel powered machines running OS X from its inception. When the Power architecture was deemed unsatisfactory buy Apple they pulled the trigger and switched to Intel since they had already planned for that contingency.

- Some former PA Semi employees then established AgniLux. Rumor has it some of the 278M from Apple funded the startup. Now reports indicate that AgniLux was working on Server technologies and not the same stuff PA Semi had been doing but who knows. You'd think that Apple would have had something in place that prevented some/many of the most KEY personnel from entering the same 'business' for X years (non-compete clause) but how far down did that go?

- Apple introduces the 4G ... A renamed PA Semi in house design with specific features for Apple.

- Google then announces the purchase of AgniLux! (sum not yet disclosed) this was just a few days ago.

Now we hear this latest rumor...

- Apple buying ARM!

Here are my questions:

1. Are we seeing some kind of retaliation from Apple or a preemptive strike?

2. Is Apple buying ARM with plans to not sign ANY new contracts (they'd have to live up to the current contracts)

3. Is Apple buying this because it doesn't want to see ARM fall into the hands of Google?

4. Is Apple buying this to prevent it falling into the hands of someone else?

The whole idea of Apple owning ARM is a little far from their normal business model. PA was different, a relatively small buyout who didn't really have lots of longstanding contracts with CE manufacturers, it made sense for Apple to snap them up before PA got noticed by everyone else.

Apple owning ARM? They couldn't just STOP everyone from using the ARM processors since pre-existing contracts are already in place and who knows what terms are attached to those contracts. 3 years, 5 years, 10 years or are they based on designs? The next 1, 2, 3, 4 major designs? I dunno even presume to know how that market operates. However, they could choose to not sign or renew any new contracts but could/would they? Finally would the MANY regulatory agencies insist that Apple continue to sign licenses for ARM technologies for a given time frame?

Now let's put the purchase of ARM in another light... What IF ARM was looking to sell their business.. Would Apple be comfortable with someone like Google, Microsoft, Intel or even AMD from becoming the new owner? ARM as a standalone company is one thing.. Apple is relatively free to hold private meetings with them talking about what Apple would like to see in future designs. How would that change if ARM was run by Google or Microsoft etc?

That might be a very big motivator for Apple to snap it up first, but would a bidding war ensue? You have to think ARM would love to see THAT happen and to Google, Microsoft, and Intel a bidding war might not be such a big deal but Apple doesn't like to overpay for anything and that was the key factor why they lost out on that AD company that Google bought out from under them... Do you really see Apple entering such a feeding frenzy over ARM? Now I was mentioning Intel but they might not be relevant here do to its position in the CPU market.

Just a correction on the last paragraph. ARM is nothing like Intrisity and PA Semi, who are/were mostly design house. ARM is a pure play IP company, the largest in the world. They are closely like companies like Synopsis and MIPS (another processor IP company).

Apple investing in ARM to gain access to their resources seems more likely to me also. Apple's a "use 'em, then lose 'em" kind of company.

Actually I just had another thought about this and it is nothing short of win win for the entire mobile industry.

What is Apple really good at? Design. Apple designs their own boards and so is pretty clued up in getting the most out of current technologies.

But what if Apple was in a position to further advance the current technology creating their own road maps? By owning ARM Apple could design awesome processors and move the technology beyond current thinking via PA Semi and license that technology to the rest of the industry through ARM using ARM's pulling power to get them built easily without having to rely on other manufacturers to design and build in such a way that fits Apple's plans.

The offshoot being that now the entire mobile industry would have this amazing technology and further advance today's technology into the future.

Apple would lead but the followers would be using top end chipsets.

I'm not sure if Apple could play that nice consider that they were drove to near extinction and they almost "liquidated the company and paid back the shareholders"

Wow. At $8B, this would easily be the most significant use of Apple's cash in all its history. It had better be a blockbuster in terms of expected synergies.

On which topic: where would synergies come from? I.e., how can Apple produce more revenue for the same dollar of cost and/or produce the same revenue for a lower dollar of cost from this acquisition?

Btw, AMD can be had for $6.5B.....

Apple makes home computers, mobile phones and digital music players. They've just created a new category of mobile computing with the iPad. Of the four categories three of them use ARM technology, home computers being the only one that does not. Apple is apparently the largest customer in the world for ARM processors. It also has a licence to produce ARM processors. If it bought ARM holdings Apple would no longer need to pay for its ARM licence to produce and use ARM processors. That could benefit Apple at the very least as a simple cost savings in the long run since it relies on that technology so much and will rely on it more and more in the future. The profit that ARM sees form its largest customer, Apple, would now remain with Apple along with all of the ARM IP. Plus it would give Apple the leverage in how that technology is used with third parties. If that isn't synergy then I don't know what is.

Remember we are talking about $9 billion (or $9000 million for those across the pond) which is far from chump change or money just to mess with someone.

People keep quoting 8b 9b ... Don't you think if Apple did make a play for ARM (a real offer) the other heavyweights in the industry aren't gonna know or somehow be made aware of it? Would Google throw 10 or 12b in stock at ARM just to see how they'd react? Apple has never been big on bidding wars and lost a deal to Google cause they didn't make a counter offer.

Now, if Apple is offering 8 or 9b in CASH that would likely be looked at more favorably then 10b in Google stock (Google usually pays with stock it seems) but 11b or 12b at some point the stock will look more attractive. It's a tough call.

What it all comes down to is this... If ARM is looking for a buyer what should Apples move be? If ARM isn't then if Apple did make an offer anyway it might open up a hornets nest Apple isn't gonna like dealing with.

No, and this is an intentional business decision. By only selling designs they'll never be in the situation where their own business interests will collide with that of their customers (i.e. withholding a new design because they want to build and sell it themselves). By only providing designs they have no interest to *not* sell designs since this is their only source of income.

If I remember correctly something like that happened a couple of years ago were Intel would not license one of their newer models to licensees of the predecessor design which is why licensing from a company which designs, builds and sells processors is suspicious to third parties.

Apple might not intend to buy ARM at all. Keep in mind, it's just a rumour.

You're quite right but the fact that this rumor WAS floated in the first place might start the gears of progress rolling anyway. Rumor or not if you don't think Google and Microsoft and lots of other players aren't holding high level meetings to discuss the very thing we are jawboning about here then you'd be crazy.. Now if just one of those closed door meetings end with 'someone else' making a possible offer to ARM themselves then RUMOR becomes REALITY.

If you had said "AppleTV", and if AppleTV used ARM, then I might be persuaded.

Apple doesn't want people to buy blu-ray discs , they want people to buy the video off of itunes instead. So what better way to stop people from buying blu-ray discs then by buying the processor that a lot of the blu-ray hardware uses. Broadcoms chips use arm cpus in them .These same broadcom chips are used in a lot of blu-ray players.

Why are we reading about this here? I hope if Apple truly DOES want to aquire ARM, that it's essentially a done deal and they're just hashing out the details... Seems Apple is struggling with privacy these days...

Apple doesn't want people to buy blu-ray discs , they want people to buy the video off of itunes instead. So what better way to stop people from buying blu-ray discs then by buying the processor that a lot of the blu-ray hardware uses. Broadcoms chips use arm cpus in them .These same broadcom chips are used in a lot of blu-ray players.

While I very much agree with you that Apple doesn't want people buying bluray discs... I don't think a buyout of ARM would have ANY impact what so ever. ARM has contracts and likely long term contracts that Apple couldn't dismiss AND I'm thinking many regulatory agencies would only permit the sale with provisions that ARM designs remain 'licensable' for a set number of years.

Finally from the looks of it Apple doesn't NEED to do anything to slow the sales of Bluray. The studios are taking care of that ALL BY THEMSELVES.

Why are we reading about this here? I hope if Apple truly DOES want to aquire ARM, that it's essentially a done deal and they're just hashing out the details... Seems Apple is struggling with privacy these days...

If what you say is true then yes this leak could have come from someone inside Apple... However it would be far more likely to be an 'anonymous flare' shot from someone inside ARM. What's better than ONE company wanting to buy you? TWO .... THREE ....

Tho a move like that could crash the whole deal down so its a somewhat risky move. What if you scream fire and in the end Apple is still the only one with a bucket of water? Would Apple likely rethink their offer or what if 3 companies came and Apple pulled out and the remaining two got into a mild biding war and the winner gets flagged by a regulatory agency that threatens to kill the entire deal.

My guess is that Mac Desktops are a smaller and smaller portion of Apple's business.

They are a mobile device company now. The desktop stuff is nothing but a legacy boat anchor to a mobile device company.

Nope. Apple derives great value from the far larger ecosystem that their computers provide. Not to mention the fact that the OS for those mobile devices is a subset of OS X. Their desktop profits will continue to grow nicely, even if the mobile device profits grow faster.

Then they could make their own processors as well as ARM processors so then they could make double profits from licensing with this buyout and selling from their own plant. They'd make their money back easily.

Hmm... I wonder if AMD could be in their future as well, Then they would have mobile and laptop/desktop chips under their belt, and the ability to mass produce.

For Apples sake, lets hope Google doesn't swoop in and jack it for Android before Apple can close the deal.

We have all seen Googles willingness to swoop in and jack a deal when Apple is on the move.

I can think of nothing better than if Google tried to buy ARM!
It would throw GOOG into further disarray, waste their money, screw up the other mobile device vendors, and bring them legal troubles. Meanwhile Apple has no plans to buy ARM anyway.

The company he founded was now big enough that it had to "think big" to move the needle, Jobs said.

Buying ARM is thinking "big" folks. I think Apple runs ARM Holdings like any wholly subsidiary. They let ARM do their thing and they apply Apple marketing. No licensee is going to be left out because ARM has to generate profit.

As for Intel, Google and other companies. Come'on folks..mergers aren't just about the money. Apple's been with ARM since its foundation. Companies are under no obligation to sell themselves to the highest bidder.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX